The Constrictions of Love
by bedlamandbroomsticks
Summary: I think the more appropriate question is what you are doing here, milady," His dry tone suggested that he knew.' Edmund cannot sleep, and Peter's wife is confused. .oneshot.
1. Constrictions of Love

Disclaimer: Do I look like my name is Clive? Seriously, do I?

A/N: Well, my first Narnia story. Whoop-de-doo. I don't quite know how I feel about it, except perhaps a little disappointed. With myself, I think. Well! Meet Pella, Marquess of Witsend, Peter's wife. (obviously AU) They got married in the summer. It's the first winter of their marriage, hence she is puzzled. If anyone would like more one-shots concerning her, please ask! She's a fun character. Oh yes, ages. Peter's around 28, Which means Susan is 27, Edmund is 25, and Lucy is 23. Or something like that. Pella is fast approaching 26.

I went pretty heavy on the parentheses and similes in the story, but what can you do?

Enjoy, and please press that lavender button down at the bottom when you're done!

EDIT: Changed the ending, kept the punchline, satisfied myself and I hope everyone else!

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Lady Pella, Marquess of Witsend, Consort to the High King of Narnia (who had far too many titles to be said in this short fiction for fear they would comprise most of it), of golden brown hair and unusually tall stature kicked and pushed at her sleeping husband to make him _let go. _Pella did not mind it much when they fell asleep with their arms around each other, his with a noticeably tighter grip than hers as designed by nature. She did mind, however, when she woke up in the middle of the night with Peter literally on top of her, pinning her down with weight gained by long and strenuous hours of training with all manner of weapons. Of course, he was also asleep and had no idea what he was doing to his poor wife who, though no daisy, was not one of the best sword fighters in Narnia and beyond.

After a futile attempt to at least stop Peter from squeezing her waist like he had appointed himself among his other numerous titles her nocturnal corset as well, Pella gave up, flopping back down on to the soft mattress with Peter snoring right in her ear. She could feel warm breath tickling her neck and a load roaring in her ear. Pella reflected not for the first time that if Aslan with his mighty roar had not made it to the Battle of Beruna so many years ago in the nick of time (as he was wont to do), Peter could have just snored at Jadis. She would have most certainly surrendered.

Pella closed her eyes wearily and was just resigning herself to another night of crushed lungs and legs and more or less crushed everything; when suddenly a very cold foot slid sporadically along her calf. Obviously it was followed by the rest of a body climbing into bed. To say that Pella was startled was not enough; she squeaked and a burst of adrenaline aided her in wriggling partially out of Peter's grasp in a very frantic manner as her hand dived under the mounds and mounds of feather down pillows. The figure climbing into the bed and the High King of Narnia took note of her struggles, though the latter was far more in the depths of slumber. The man or woman (and Pella fairly seethed at a thought of a woman climbing into bed with her husband if was not his sisters, especially if was that Duchess of Holum who was currently visiting and was far too flirtatious with her husband _and_ Edmund) stilled and Peter tightened his grip on her as if she were a slippery sort of fish and he an otter; Pella gasped for air among the pillows and her hand finally reached a steel handle that she tugged out eagerly and no doubt slitting a few pillows in the process.

"Don't move!" Pella pointed the dagger at the dark figure--she could not say if it was man or woman (obviously not something else as it was a _foot_ that touched her leg). A sight she knew she must have looked with her tawny brown hair flipped half over her head and a full grown man attached to her hips, but she did not care. She was bent on cutting open the Duchess of Holum's throat open if need be--and if not need be, too.

"I wasn't, and it's quite unnecessary to tell me so with you having a knife pointed at me, Pella," The body sighed.

Pella gaped slightly, recognizing the voice, and shut her mouth quickly, lowering her dagger and feeling, as one usually does in these instances when everything is suddenly clear, quite foolish. "Edmund?" Her question was delivered in a strangled sotto voce in yet another pathetic attempt to avoid waking up Peter, though the way he was squeezing on her thighs made her half wish to take a vindictive pleasure in actually doing so. She needed to get him one of those charming stuffed animals (made totally out of cloth as Lucy assured her) to strangle instead.

Pella's brow creased as she returned her attention to Edmund who was still waiting in the same position with one foot on the cold stone floor and another in the bed in a tense impatience that Pella suspected had something to do with the aforementioned floor and its temperature.

"Yes, it's I," Edmund replied with an edge to his voice, ever grammatically correct even in the middle of the night. "May I get in?"

Pella noted that he was not whispering in the mess of thoughts that was her head. "Er--yes, right," she stammered, and shoved the knife somewhere safe under the pillows. What in the name of Aslan was King Edmund climbing into his brother's bed for (the bed that his brother shared with his _wife_, Pella felt obligated to add to clarify; even though she did have a bed some doors down)? She voiced it, though in a less harsh phrasing.

Edmund was safely ensconced in the blankets beside her, his head just about level with Peter's which was at her stomach as she still half sat up. Though Edmund possessed, no doubt, far more grace than his brother at this moment in time; Pella could feel perhaps something that might be drool on her leg. Feeling ever more foolish Pella slid down--wriggled, more like--so that her head was level with Edmund's and they spoke to each other across a veritable mountain of pillows.

"I think the more appropriate question is what _you_ are doing here, milady," His dry tone suggested that he knew.

"He--I prefer to sleep in the same bed as Peter. Well, no--I mean yes. I do. Peter says that he doesn't rest easy with me a corridor over when he cannot keep watch--" She stopped and grew flustered. Peter was as much protective over her as his precious siblings (not meant to be sneered, but said sincerely), as which was obvious by the stronghold about her ribs.

"Ah." Edmund propped his head up on his hand. "I would not expect less from him." His tone was yet again dry with the air of knowledge.

An awkward silence prevailed for quite a few moments as Edmund allowed Pella to attempt to a) pull her far scattered mind together b) form a coherent sentence and c) get Peter off of her. Or perhaps he was waiting for her to ask it again. So she did.

Edmund sighed and lowered himself back down on the pillow, a hand reaching up to scratch the slight stubble on his chin thoughtfully. "Today is the first day of winter." He paused, and Pella waited, picking at the fingers that Peter locked around her with limited success. "Do you know what happened at the Battle of Beruna? Well--no." He stopped himself. "Do you know why winter is such a difficult time for me?"

Pella's cheeks turned red enough to imitate both esteemed king's youngest sister's hair in a more brilliant shade, and opened her mouth several times before managing to come out with a quiet, "Yes." Her hand involuntarily found Edmund's, and she clasped it firmly, letting their fingers intertwine.

"Well, every year I can never seem to be warm enough during winter--" Indeed, Pella realized with surprise, Edmund's hand had an underlying cold to it despite the almost stifling warmth of the down cover and her own hand which, as Peter assured her, was one of the best remedies to winter frostbite at anytime though he impudently added that it was a nightmare during summer, "--and I spend my nights in bed with Peter as per his request until spring." Though the perceptive Marquess had a notion that it was not wholly Peter's decision, even if she could tell he had a big part of it. "I had not expected to find you here; else I would not have come."

Pella laid her other hand warmly on Edmund's and began, "Don't ever be so--" She was cut off by snort of indignation next to her long-suffering ear. Without releasing Pella or using his hands for balance, the High King sat up, dragging his wife with him onto his lap and startling the other two nobles badly.

"Are you insane, Ed?" Peter inquired, ignoring Pella's weak hits on his arms to make him let go and Edmund's gape that could not be missed in the dark. "You know that you should be here no matter what if Pella is here or not."

Pella let fly a _humph_ at that and Peter loosened his grip. "Do you know how long I've been waiting for you to do that? Honestly, if my lord is so concerned about my waistline, you can order my corsets for me--!" The good lady was cut off by Edmund's own hassled reply.

"It was only hypothetical, Peter. Don't be so ridiculous."

"I'm not, Ed. You're the one being absurd. In the name of Aslan, why didn't anyone tell me it was the first day of winter? Edmund! You're freezing!" The High King capably switched his protesting wife to the other side of him, no one really knowing quite what she was protesting now (including herself), and grabbed his little brother with the other arm.

"Peter," Pella ceased railing against him and was now speaking to the High King of Narnia in a patient tone she reserved for particularly slow Animals, "Lucy and Susan and I were exclaiming about it at least three times every hour, not to mention we dragged you out into the snow with us! What exactly did you think we were doing?"

"Yes, what did you?" Edmund echoed sarcastically.

Peter was saved from replying to the embarrassing indictment by the creaking of the door. Pella shot up, her hand going underneath the pillows for the dagger as the two males chuckled in the annoyingly superior way that males had (made, no doubt, even more annoying and superior by the fact that they were kings) at Pella.

"Oh shut up, you two," Pella replied eloquently, kicking her beloved husband as two figures appeared, illuminated by the candles they were carrying and easily identified as the two other Pevensies and Queens of Narnia (not necessarily in that order) and making Pella feel silly again.

Lucy ran to the great bed (worthy of its name as 'king's size' in our realm), stopping only to drop the candle carelessly on the bedside table and nearly set them all on fire as Susan told her.

"Oh, Edmund! Do we need the cordial, Peter?" Lucy asked worriedly, ignoring Susan's scolding in favor of more attention worthy matters like her brother.

"We all would if you weren't more careful, Lucy," Susan reminded, muttering displeasedly at the floor and its temperature as she crossed to the bed, snuffing out the two candles.

Pella scooted over at Peter's bidding, watching in some amazement as the stately Queen crawled into bed as well, gathering Edmund as best she could. She had realized that the siblings were close (very, very, very--so many very's that this author will not bother to continue for fear of losing her readers--close) and in fact had found a few of them sleeping together in the same bed at times when she went to help them in the morning. But this was...beyond anything she had seen (and being an only child, then, perhaps it was not much that she had seen). How many families were so closely knitted that they had no qualms about crawling into bed with each other in the middle of the night, one of the newly minted family members being a brother's wife?

"So, this happens every night during winter?" Pella asked as they all shifted and squirmed to get into place, places being a giant cocoon around Edmund the darkly scowling butterfly—some might say caterpillar, but it is not my place to discuss that here.

"Well, no. Only on the beginning of winter, winter solstice, and the coldest nights. And Christmas!" Lucy added with some of her immortal child-like excitement.

Pella pondered this, laying herself on the top of Peter's side, suppressing a grin as he grunted in discomfort. So they didn't have a previously unknown blessed mental connection of sorts that Pella had missed out on.

"Is everyone comfortable?" Susan asked sweetly, no doubt knowing the answer.

"No." This of course came from Edmund who could barely be heard under the pile of loving bodies that surrounded him, proving that yet again, love does suffocate.

"Good."

Pella lay there for a few moments, and finally (finally) set her mind at rest for the night. At the very least, she was not in Edmund's unfortunate position. But one question kept buzzing like a bee during spring around in Pella's head as she found her husband's free arm wrapped yet again around her in a vice-like grasp.

"Is this why you all have such small waists?"


	2. Doubts

Discliamer: I own nothing but Pella.

A/N: An old piece that I jotted down quickly when I was wondering why the hell Peter would fall in love and even marry a slightly awkward, uncommanding girl who provided no political advantages. I simply couldn't come up with a single reason why Peter would even fall in love with her except for small things--it's a good thing Lucy is smarter than me and Pella.

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"I…I don't see why." The woman was twisting the newel post round and round, biting her lip and displaying all other signs of discomfort caused by insecurities.

"What do you mean?" The other, younger woman questioned. Her eyes appraised the woman intelligently.

"Why he…he asked me to marry him." She started ripping the worn cotton handkerchief in her hand. "I mean—" The words began to tumble out of her mouth like a stream tumbling too quickly over rocks. "I cannot coax him out of his tempers like Edmund, nor do I make him laugh at the worst times like you, and I do not provide patient advice like Susan. I do not even give him something specific to fight for—he already has you. I…I do not give him anything he does not already have. And as for romance?" She gave a shaky laugh, bordering on hysteria. "He has many more beautiful women at his disposal, and many more elegant and refined."

The younger woman's brow furrowed slightly as the older one fell silent. "Can you not see?"

The older one did not reply. She turned to gaze out of the window, looking truly melancholy.

The younger woman sighed, and lay a comforting hand on hers, giving the cold fingers an affectionate squeeze. "You give him a future to hope for."


End file.
